Seattle Punkymoms meet for a stroller skate in Bellevue: from left,...

Sadie Botuchis, 3, listens for signs of life on mom Kristin Botuchis' tattooed belly in their Seattle home. Becoming a mom was a transition for Botuchis, who used to go out every weekend to clubs all around town.
Photo: KAREN DUCEY/P-I

When a purple-haired, tattooed, night-scene-loving punker has a baby, what's a gal to do? Trade her rocker threads and late-night life for khakis and a minivan?

Hell no! She finds like-minded ladies raising children.

One such alternative parenting group is Seattle Punkymoms, a Yahoo! group of about 40 that interacts mostly in the virtual world. The group is an offshoot of a national Punkymoms Web site started by Jessica Seymour of Dallas.

Online, the mamas post tips on free kids' activities or a cool kids' shop or reminisce about some great rock concert or their favorite tattoo parlor. But, there are get-togethers too, and a few include husbands or partners.

Recently, three punkymoms went for a session of roller-skating with strollers at the Bellevue Skate King.

"I love this song!" yells Heather Bissonnette, 24, as she zooms around the rink, pushing her daughter, Jessica Henderson, 3, in a stroller. Wearing a Care Bears T-shirt, with her reddish hair in ponytails, Bissonnette pulls up to Thea Starr, who is wheeling 3-year-old Nievis in a stroller.

Starr's shirt says "Bad," next to the image of an apple. A dragon crawls up the nape of her neck, one of her five tattoos.

Fellow punkymom Jessi Bloom-Kenney invited the mamas to go skating, which she does often with husband Greg, toddler Noah, 3, and 6-month-old Micah. She even persuaded the rink, where she worked as a teen, to play more '80s tunes rather than the Hokey Pokey. At local skate parks, where she goes with her boarding husband, she's the only skateboarding mama attempting to shred it up.

Bloom-Kenney, 26, who owns a non-toxic landscaping business, says she doesn't feel in sync with the other moms who come to stroller skate.

"I'm like an outcast here. I don't have the little cliques. But, that's OK. I'm used to it," said Bloom-Kenney, who has a nose stud and multiple ear piercings.

Her own mother teases her that she won't be a punkymom forever. "My mom's like, 'Give it 10 years. You're going to be coaching the soccer league.' "

None of the three ladies looks particularly punk, and while a number of the punkymoms are pierced, tattooed or dress edgy at times, the bond that seems to unite them is a feeling that they just aren't mainstream. In a few of their own words, they are "weird" or "different."

As punkymom Trin Falk puts it, "It's fine if one of us is a blue-haired vegan while another is a Catholic homeschooler."

The Seattle group's moderator is Kristin Botuchis, 33, who has a 3-year-old daughter and is due with her second child next month.

Becoming a mom was a transition for Botuchis, who met her husband at "a dark, skanky bar."

She used to go out every weekend to clubs all around town, punked up in high heel boots, fuchsia hair, black clothes and the leopard-collared flight jacket with the "kiss my ass" patch.

"We'd sleep in until like 11 a.m. or noon, and then maybe go over to Aileen's sports bar on Capitol Hill and have bloody marys. And now our lifestyle is like, we go to the park and we clean our house and we're grown-ups now," said Botuchis, who works part-time for an investment firm.

She still has streaks of fuchsia in her hair and a belly tattoo that's stretched with pregnancy.

None of Botuchis's friends have kids, so the Punkymom site was a good place for her to relate to other rock-loving ladies with children.

It took two years for Botuchis to feel that she had a separate identity from her daughter, Sadie, now 3. Going to a Cramps show at the two-year-mark brought back some of Botuchis' rocker self, and she started going out more and dressing punk or rockabilly at night.

Sadie isn't into black clothes like mom. "She's really into pink princessy stuff and I don't fight her too much on that," Botuchis said. "I've put some pink streaks into her hair with vegetable dye."

Botuchis' personal style has raised other parents' eyebrows. "You get people who think you must not know what you're doing, and you get lots of advice," she said. "Or, that you must not be such a good mom if you dress funny."

That's one shared experience for many of the punkymoms -- feeling judged by strangers.

Starr, a mother of four who lives in Normandy Park and runs her own craft business, said one of her kid's teachers once eyed her tattoos oddly. "It's a shame that people are so judgmental on appearance alone," says Starr. One reason she likes punkymoms is that, "it's nice for my daughter, who's turning 10, to see that it's OK to be different."

That goes for Sandra Darling-Roberts, who isn't in the punkymoms group, but has a circle of mama friends who are punky in their own right.

Darling-Roberts takes her daughter Althea, 5, to see her strap on skates and wallop other women in the Rat City roller-derby league.

"She can be whatever kind of girl she wants to be. And I think roller derby teaches her that better than I can," says Darling-Roberts who owns a eco-friendly house-cleaning business. "It's definitely a violent sport. I broke my tailbone and I was off skates for three months."

Her laid-back mamas' group likes to drink wine in the hot tub and talk politics. Several of them were inspired by the Hip Mama zine, now an online and a print publication, founded by Ariel Gore, who was a pregnant college student when she started the mag.

Darling-Roberts was an exotic dancer whose life took a huge turn when she got pregnant.

"Along came Althea and suddenly my life was about breastfeeding and organic food and tons of parenting groups," she said. "She took over my whole life, but for the best."

Althea doesn't have the kind of schedule that many parenting experts would recommend -- predictable bed and meal times, and a well-established routine.

"I drag her along to poetry readings. She comes to watch my friends spin fire. We go to pagan celebrations and bonfires," Darling-Roberts said. "I don't know what I'm doing as a parent, so I figure if she's out there living life with me, that's gonna stick."

But, in the end, she says, "I'm not that different from suburban housewives. I want the same things they do -- I want a good life for my child."

Her friend Erin Verginia also exposes her daughter, Audrey, to her interests, including hard rock, which the 8-year-old doesn't like.

"I subject her to it so that she'll have a better understanding of it when she gets older," said Verginia. "She doesn't listen to Britney Spears. She's more likely to listen to Go Like Hell."

She made a point of teaching her daughter to see no difference between gay and straight people, and to avoid gender and racial bias.

"I encourage my daughter to ask questions, even if I don't like the questions," said Verginia. "Because I know she's using her own mind."

"I teach my daughter about all religions, even the ones that I can't stand. But I still give her the information to make her own educated choice."

One thing she doesn't tell her daughter about is her night life. Verginia manages the Burning Hearts Burlesque troupe.

"My night starts at 9 p.m. When she goes to bed, my social life begins," said Verginia, who is also on the PTA of Audrey's elementary school in Bellevue. "I didn't lose myself as a person when I became a parent."

Verginia has a lip piercing, favors pink streaks in her hair and sports five tattoos. For going out, say to a fetish club, she dons fishnets, spiky heels and black makeup.

Audrey often tells her that her outfits are crazy. "She's more reserved than I am, which is ironic, because I'm the parent that would accept it."

As for so many other moms with a punk edge, bonding with alternamamas has been a blessing.

"We are like the opposite of the soccer moms and the competitive moms," she said. "We're more accepting of each other's flaws and our children's flaws."